Saturday, April 9, 2016

Forget Sharks

If you're hanging out on a beach on the Netherlands and you suddenly see one of these babies coming towards you, then you may never worry about another Great White again:

Artist Theo Jansen makes his stalking wind-driven critters from plastic pipes and bottles. He's made some that don't just use the wind for motive power -- the wind itself drives pumps that the creatures can use to move forward if the breeze dies down. Jansen says he would like to try to find a way to give them an artificial intelligence so they wouldn't always walk straight into the water and get stranded or drown.

Yup. Nothing I'd like to see more than something like this coming after me and knowing it could think for itself about what's the best way to deal with small, lumpy pink sacks of meat. That's bound to end well.